


Between Us, There Is Affection and Stolen Jewels

by bug_from_space



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, OT4, Pickpockets, Polyamory, Romantic Fluff, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 10:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18150647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bug_from_space/pseuds/bug_from_space
Summary: It's a choice made on nothing but a gut feeling, but when Pru says that the four of them should run away together, Tim doesn't say no, and sometime in the two months after, he falls in love with the three of them.





	Between Us, There Is Affection and Stolen Jewels

**Author's Note:**

> So two days ago I finished listening to the audiobook of The Bane Chronicles' What Really Happened in Peru, and Magnus and Kitty inspired me to do this. So enjoy. Plus, well, I wanted to do stuff for the OT4, so expect more of that... Enjoy!

The summer sun was hot, and beat down on the hard packed road of one of the many countries Tim had traveled to in the last three weeks. (Most of the markets had blended together, an endless array of colour and pickpocketing). Tim laughed as leaned against the alley wall, one hand grabbing a few of the jewelry pieces that he’d shoved in his pocket. A lovely sapphire bracelet catching his attention as he admired it.

“I can’t  _ believe _ that guys face!” Owens said, one arm pulling Tim close to him, and he rolled his eyes as he did, grabbing one of the ruby rings from Owens, an innocent smile on his face as he slid it into his pocket, along with the bracelet just as Owens leaned down to kiss him, and grabbed both pieces of jewelry. The playful theft was nothing but a tease, and Tim thought, blushing slightly, an excuse. The excitement from the half hour chase through the Chatuchak market had been invigorating.

“I know, you’d almost thing he’s never been stolen from.” Tim added, just as Pru cut in.

“He looked like a cartoon character.” She said, an eye roll following the words. “Just look at what he was wearing, it’d be a wonder if he’s never experienced it before.” A few minutes later, after they were certain the coast was clear, the entered the fray again, grinning the whole time.

* * *

He didn’t regret running away with Z, Pru, and Owens when they’d suggested it after dinner in Amsterdam (and didn’t that feel like a lifetime ago sometimes). It wasn’t like he had anything to lose. (He had that night, Bruce had still been gone then, but the appeal had been enough to convince him to abandon it. But now) Bruce was home, after his experience lost in time, Dick was Batman, and Batman already had a Robin. He didn’t even care that what the four of them was doing wasn’t good or kind. He had lost the pure white morality back in Gotham-- and with Robin.

They were easy to love, and that was a novel experience. Affection from them had never been a hard fought for prize, but rather something they gave him, like they gave each other. (He still wasn’t nearly as free with it as they were with each other. The hard-won familiarity they shared was one that came of years and experience with each other.) For everything the summer had brought with it, it had never been alienation, which, if he went home now he doubted he’d ever receive such a warm reception. Sometime in the last month these three had become home— had become  _ family.  _ At some point he ha fallen in love with these three.

* * *

Bruce would say what they were doing was unlawful and immoral, but as the summer wore on, and Tim and the other three travelled across the world, it was the first time he could remember being free. When he’d been a child, his parents had been free; and if for the first time Tim can’t bring himself to hate his parents for leaving him. He understood now. The flights, and the constant shifts in the world were addictive. (He thinks he still resents his parents for it, but he sees why they did it now. A part of him wants that understanding to be harder to achieve.)

They weren’t living off his money, or the League’s, but rather, profit they’d made from their exploits, and the things they’d conned off unsuspecting tourists. A pearl necklace off a woman in Egypt, a pocket watch from a man in expensive suit in Brazil, and a handful of bejeweled rings from a lady in the Philippines. All sold to finance the endless path they were creating. He had always been the perfect soldier— the perfect son. Quiet and reserved, but this? This was brash, and loud, and together, he, and Z, Pru, and Owens, has made a living pocketing trinkets from people, and sleeping until noon because they could, there was no one to tell them they couldn’t.

Bruce would have disapproved if he’d known, but, Tim thought, as he nimbly made his way past the endless shops of Turkey’s Grand Bazaar, Bruce didn’t know. He had given everything to the cause that Bruce believed in, and had gotten nothing for it, now, there was satisfaction. He couldn’t remember the last time the world had been this exciting, and he had been this happy. He and the other three had spent a month chasing adventure, and the golden fillings of rich men’s pockets. It wasn’t a hard task, their training as assassins under Ra’s, and his own experience first in following Batman, and then as Robin, had more than prepared them for the challenges, but it was fun, and in it’s own way, more rewarding than anything being an assassin or Robin had ever been.

It wasn’t that he didn’t miss his family, Dick, Bruce, Damian, Jason, everyone else, he did. Sometimes he’d see something, like the beautiful carved blue quarts bird on Temple Street, and be struck by a pang of nostalgia and homesickness. And sometimes he’d see, and be so certain he’d take a double take, someone from Gotham. He could have sworn he'd seen  Jason in the Kashgar Sunday Market, and the rest of the day he spent looking over his shoulder in expectation (until his lov-partners had ravished him and he forgot how worried he was (lovers seemed like the wrong word-- far too delicate and sweet for what they were)).

Sometimes when he was kissed red by Owens, or would capture Z in a kiss (sometimes to hide from those who would notice them, and sometimes just because of how much he loved him), he would feel guilt for leaving them, and then he’d remember how they had treated him in the last weeks before he left. (They’d thought he had gone insane with denial that Bruce wasn’t dead. Dick had  _ given away _ Robin to Damian, without even an apology, just a justification of how he didn’t need it as much, like that made it better).

Pru, and Owens had allowed him to be angry, and he was so grateful for the chance. It was the three of them that had held him when he broke down in Paris on the sixth day of their travels, and it had been them that had brought him out to one of the stores along the boulevards and spoke aimlessly as he calmed down. It had been them, not his ‘family’ that had supported him. (Because they were his family now, not… not Bruce, and his adopted brothers.)

He loved them-- he was  _ in love _ with them. Z, the stable one, the voice of reason, who Tim would fall asleep on flights, but stay up all night talking to when they drove from city to city, while Pru and Owens crashed in the back. It was all due to Z that they’d even made it as far as they had. They understood each other, they were both far more covert, and prone to stealth than either of the others.

Pru who was so different from him, but shared a sort of kinship. She had joined the League at the same time as when he realised who Batman was, and in a way they had grown up faster than anyone else chose to. And it had been Pru to suggest that they explore Paris after midnight because he’d broken down, and it had been her who had first kissed him. It had been that night in Paris, and then her lips had been on his, and it was clumsy and awkward, but so unbelievably appreciated.

And then there was Owens who had laughed at him when he had fallen into the fountain in Rome, but had helped him out, and was the same man who had threatened to shoot Batman because he had upset Tim. Owens had been the one to carry him away from the market when he’d fainted from heat exhaustion and low blood sugar. There was no doubt that it was because of them that going back to Gotham had stopped being a certainty, and started being a maybe. (It had been somewhere between Prague and Berlin when he had seen a piece of Gotham news and didn’t immediately think home).

* * *

The day was a quiet one, with the three of them occupying a table at a cafe in Poland. It had been a month and a half since they had flown out of Amsterdam, and they had cut ties with the League. Z had a cup of coffee and a half eaten biscotti in front of him, that Tim was stealing, while Owens and Pru were debating which flavour of danish was better. It’s enough to make him laugh as he leans against Z, and then he’s hit with the realization that this had become normal.

Days of fast paced motion followed by quiet ones in a new country. This wasn’t even an odd scene anymore. (More odd was the knowledge he didn’t miss his life before, or the late nights of being a vigilante). These days when he could think that they were normal teenagers had become just as comfortable and familiar as the feeling of pockets weighed down with stolen jewels. “Personally I would say raspberry cream cheese ones.” Tim suggests, taking another bite of Z’s biscotti.

From the other side of the table he can feel the betrayed looks from the other two, and the two voices in unison,  _ “Raspberry cream cheese!?”.  _ Z chokes back a laugh as both Owens and Pru look at him for support.

“I’m remaining uninvolved. I prefer biscotti.” he said, looking down at the plate that Tim had grabbed the biscuit from, and then at Tim, where his pilfered sweet was being eaten by the offending party. It’s not like when he was young and read novels of happily ever afters, they’re too questionable for that (plus there’s too many of them), and nothing about their relationship is like a fairy tale, but it’s enough for him to be happy, and for now, that’s more than okay.


End file.
